The Question of the treaty

The tribes and clans of wild folk and the green peoples will nearly all speak of the treaty if question about law by a psychonaut. Any one of these folk or people may give the treaty and the Psychonaut's lack of adherence to it as a reason for not speaking with or assisting the psychonaut. A member of the treaty peoples might explain it briefly if pressed. Such an explanation would likely point out that the wild folk contains both predator and prey and that even those amongst the wild Folk who are prey themselves do in fact prey upon the green peoples. The treaty is the agreement whereby the tribes and clans of green peoples and wild folk might deal honorably with one another while still allowing room for natural predation. A fox will hunt a grouse. A goat will feed upon the bushes of many species. But despite this, through adherence to the treaty, goat folk may trade with fox folk and berry persons. The Psychonauts will naturally wonder; may they sign the treaty? And Yes, they may, if they have passed the initiation and endeared the rites of passage and earned the right to call themselves warriors under the Freepath. And foremost Psychonauts fresh to the foglands, is the primary goal.

Old Word Repurposed: Warrior

Warrior is an ambiguous term to most people.
But then so is adult. People become adults by trudging through time one second at a time, and accumulate additional privileges through no achievement or effort in most cases (earning a driver's license and graduating high school are the most arduous things that people must do to acquire the traditional trappings of adulthood).
You can become an adult in the modern world so easily that term is meaningless. Warrior is something that you become by doing something. Like being an athlete or a writer or a scientist or a scholar; being a warrior implies a doing in the word itself. If you claim to be an athlete, but look like Homer Simpson people will rightly question your claim. But to claim to be an adult, one need merely get older and have a piece of ID if you wish to enter a bar.
We use Warrior not to mean one who is violent, but one who is ready to face the world: capable of critical thought, able to be self-sufficient, and able to defend their self against opposing forces.

New Term: Year Zero

Year Zero is the time and process of becoming intersufficient. Named after the tradition in DC Comics of giving heroes a new back story by writing retrospective revisionist origin stories (retcons) and titling them 'Year One'; most famously 'Batman: Year One' by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. Grant Morrison pitched a reboot effort for the Batman movie franchise after the disaster that was 'Batman and Robin', by proposing a Batman origin story called 'Batman: Year Zero' that would focus on how Bruce Wayne became Batman rather than his early time as Batman. The title has recently been coopted for a new Batman story arc with similar aims.

And so with this pedigree, we coopt the idea of Year Zero as the period of becoming who we were meant to be, the period in which we become the heroes that the world needs.

It is tempting to use Matrix inspired terminology like the 'red pill', however simply waking up to what must be done is only a very small part. Bruce Wayne's training and discovery process that is inherent in the term Year Zero is far more accurate and more empowering.

Monday Meditations: The Path of life

The path of the free human, the path of the wild human is thus: from dependence to independence to Interdependence. To stop early is to never learn how to be human, and never learn how to properly be an animal, and how to properly live upon the earth. 

Dependence

You were born a child, helpless, in need of protection, instruction and nourishment. You were cared for and taught and fed and sheltered. This is the way of the child, and those of us who still cannot make our own way without the resources of others are here still, and thus still children.

Independence

Your mission, your task, your purpose as a child is to learn. You must learn to be an adult. To be an adult you must know how to think for yourself- to spot deceptions, to reason things through, to ponder, and think creatively. These are the marks of an adult- an active intellectual life. To be an adult you must be able provide for yourself, food, and shelter and clothing and tools that you will need. The mark of an adult it the ability to make or find what one needs to live alone.  To be an adult you must also be able defend yourself and your home. What good is the ability to grow food, if a man with a sword shows up each day to take your food from you and eat it himself? What good is the ability to think great thoughts if a man with a sword can force you to turn you mind to making him a more effective conqueror? Thus you must defend.

Interdependence

As essential as those three things are, they do not make you fully an adult yet. Until you have used your skills to contribute to your community and connect into that web of interdependence- teaching and providing willingly to continue the community into tomorrow, you are only an adolescent. The skills are essential, giving those skills back is what completes the transformation from child to adult.

Saturday Thoughts: Professional Fighting VS. Actual Fighting

I was reading the paper recently, something that I do only occasionally, and I stumbled upon an article arguing the pros and cons of different scoring systems for mixed martial arts sporting competitions. This struck me as reaching to a central problem in our culture- we want somebody else to decide.

Of the mixed martial arts competitions out there, the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) is arguably the biggest. It uses a complicated judge run scoring system to determine what happens whenever there is no clear winner- which is often in recent years. This, however, was not always the case.

In the first several UFC competitions, there were no judges and- in fact- the competition trumpeted this as a positive thing. A doctor was at ringside and could stop the fight to prevent permanent injury. A refereee was in the ring to prevent illegal blows. A corner could throw in the towel for the fighter if they feared for his ability to defend himself. That was it. The fight went until a fighter was knocked out, tapped out, or the fight was stopped by one of the afformentioned officials for safety's sake.

The argument for judges, derives from the desire by TV producers to put a time limit on fights so as to prevent a fight from running outside the time alloted for the television slot. Once a time limit is added, there seems to be no way to avoid judges. And once judges are added, fighters can begin to work the clock and act aggressive rather than fight effectively in order to please the judges.

A simple solution would be to add the time limit; and then score both fights with a loss on their record if the fight goes the distance without a clear winner. The problem with this is that, domesticated culture wants a winner and doesn't like systems that are self-running. Domesticated culture needs to see oversight and managers and judges- these things validate our view that world needs to be managed and ruled.

Because after all, if things can manage themselves, "Oh my gosh, what will our Kings and Priests do?"

Another Path?

Instead of looking at the world around us as both a dangerous wild place and also as a giant piggy bank we can take as much from as we like, we should instead look at the world as a partner.

The world is not alien. We have made ourselves very alien, but the earth is not alien at all. The earth is our home and our parent and our partner in our continued existence.

We need to treat it like an equal. Take what we need, but never again become so gluttonously greedy. Give back to the earth when we take from it. Treat it, and by association ourselves and our children, with respect.

This lifestyle will necessitate adaptive cultures, and resilient cultures, because your become more capable and adaptive and resilient when you cannot simply throw money/energy at a problem and attempt to over power it. In such cases you must be creative and capable and - obviously- better at solving problems.

Our problem is that all that -very limited- high energy fuel has made us very lazy; and wealth has taken the place of ingenuity. We need to regain our ingenuity and our resilience. And that starts with changing our premises.

The earth is not a wilderness, full of disorder and dangers. It is our home and our workshop and out school. We do not need more energy to be more adaptive and resilient. We need more ingenuity, more mental flexibility and more competence to be adaptive and resilient.

We need to seek enough, not more. We need to work with our partners on this planet- the animals, the green plants, the fungi, the bacteria. We have been at war with 1.5 million species, as well as the ecosystem that makes our continued survival possible, and it is a war we cannot win.

We need a whole new world view, and we need it now.

Spread the Word

 

I'm going to start this with two quotes from Seth Godin's book Tribes.

First Quote

If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
Did you say, "A low-level bureaucrat working in the Social Security office in Yonkers, New York"?
Did you say, "A mid-level supervisor at a struggling GM plant in Ohio"?
Did you say, "Fry cook at McDonald's"?
Somehow, I doubt it.

Godin has got our number here. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden claimed that once we realized we weren't going to become rock gods and movie stars, we would get very pissed off. I might be right, but pissed off or not, most of us don't do anything about the situation.

We watch our dreams leave us, slowly pay cheque by pay cheque, compromise by comprise; a little surrender here, a small retreat here- until we think it's too late.

We don't want to be fry cooks, and mid level supervisors and bureaucrats. These are not our life's ambitions. But we're scared. We're scared we aren't good enough. That our ideas aren't ready and polished and perfect. That what we have to offer won't measure up. That our dream isn't up to facing the competition.

Well, this brings me to the second quote from Tribes-

“In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn't necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.”

I might add to this by saying, that the idea that wins is also the idea with the most fearless heretics behind it.

it's become a cliche to attack consumer culture, even consumer culture does it. why not, it sells, and that's all consumer culture is after in the end. And there's the problem. Consumer culture absorbs our attacks and sells them back to us. Consumer Culture runs on us. If we don't like the world being created we have to stop working on it, and start working on something different.

Imagine learning skills that will make you able to stand alone, not merely more employable. Imagine learning how to care for yourself and your family, not how to pay others to do this. Imagine learning how to think for yourself and analyze what the experts tell you, instead of being forced to react to them on gut instinct. Imagine being in charge of your own life, instead of feeling as though it is crawling along on automatic along a route you never chose.

That is crazy goal of the Red Cedar Project. Make self-reliance skills wide spread, enable the current generation through enhancing what they are able to do. There is profound hope in this enabling.

The slogan "Yes We Can" helped put Obama in the White House. Enabling and engaging people is the only way to create real change, because positive change starts at with the individual.

But for individuals to change, they need new tools, better tools. And that's where we come in.

We need committed volunteers. People willing to donate time and energy on a crazy project. A online network of people devoted to self-reliance as a method of social change, with a physical camp people can go to (and maybe more in the future). We need members who want to talk about self-reliance and how it can rebuild citizenship and revitalize community.

This is something worth fighting for. This is something people can be proud to be involved in.

But we don't need followers, we need a whole lot of leaders.

That said, I don't want people to give 100%. I don't think its a good idea. I didn't give 100% in school- I gave between 75% and 82% in school, but I did it by doing 20% of the work that the people who gave 95% did.

Not all effort is equal.

Certain actions yield bigger results than others. If they give you three days to do something, it is often best to spend the first two days finding the key issues to address.

This is called the 80/20 rule. I most aspects of life 80% (or more) of the results come for 20% of the work. To be more successful, we need not do more, but do the things that will produce more. We need to be intelligently lazy. We also need to be bravely lazy, because this most important 20% often involves the most intimidating work. Talking to people, asking for sales, stepping up and putting yourself on the line instead of preparing for another month.

So let's be lazy, let's do what we must and no more, but let's do it now- no matter how scared we are, because the rewards for this are the life we want to live and the cost of not doing this is the drudgery of the crowd. Let's be brave rather than becoming sheeple.

Instead of trying to change the world, try to find three people you can help and inspire. Assist three people in transforming themselves into warriors and you will be well on the way to making this a phenomenon.

One you have caught the attention of three people use the following, very simple, method to help them learn what you have learned.

Watch Do Teach

Watch one
Do one
Teach one

And then it’s their turn to teach three people.

If one person teaches three, and they teach three each,

it only takes 25 repetitions to reach the whole population of the earth.

"Where's your warrior spirit?"

In order to find three people willing to work with you, it will be necessary to talk to many more than three people. Many will be opposed, many will be ambivalent, many will be interested but do nothing. Only a few will work with you and fight beside you.

To find those few, speak to many.

We need to offend people. If everything we are saying is safe and inoffensive then it probably has no value and no strength. We cannot please everybody and should not try. We should strive to make our message strong enough that we offend a lot of people (we can get publicity that way), and interest the few people for whom we are a good fit.

There are two ways of coding a computer program: top down programming, and bottom up programming. Top down programming is how most people are taught to program. They lay out an outline of the program. Telling it to run each section of the program and thus refering the program to that section of the code to follow whatever information is there to find. Top down coding is efficient for its creator, it is predictable and it is deliberately hierarchical. Bottom Up programming sets the rules and then observes the results of the rules. This form of programming is best epitomised by John Hortn Conway's 'Game of Life'. It is also a decent metaphor for the system of life on this planet.

The corporations and governments of the world are trying to run the people of earth as though we were the sprites in their top down programmed video game, changing the rules and de-buggin the lines of code when we don't act in a way that they like. And we are analogous to those bits of code- those digital slaves. We are within their power, so long as we play their game. Trying to affect corporations and governments through the top down structure that the corporations and governments create is foolish. The power of bottom up programming is that it needs no programmer beyond whoever sets up the basic rules of play. The agents design the program through their actions. In order to begin designing our own lives again, we need to free ourselves from the confinement we find ourselves in today. 

"You must have a revolution if you're going to survive... ...If you go on the way you're

presently going, it's hard to imagine your living through another century. But you can't have a negative revolution... ...You must have a positive revolution, a revolution that brings people more of what they really want, not less of what they don't really want. They don't really want sixteen-bit electronic games, but if that's the best they can get, they'll take it. You won't get far in your revolution by asking them to give up their sixteen-bit electronic games. If you want them to

lose interest in toys, then you must give them something even better than toys.”

Daniel Quin, “My Ishmael”

I have been thinking about speed. I have plans for my life, and people constantly tell me how unrealistic my time frame is for success. I have noticed however, that it never takes me very long to do something once I simply set my mind and start doing it.

I think not doing it, is the primary cause of how long big goals take to accomplish. Things are scary, although not necessarily difficult. We have been told that they are difficult, and taught to fear these things that might actually help us.

We can't ask for a raise, what if the boss says no? Well, if the boss says no then you'll keep your old wage, the same way you will if you don't ask.

What if I make the presentation and they don't buy the product? Well you won't have sold anything, the same way as if you hadn't made the presentation.

The price of failing at an attempted big step is the same as not trying, and the possible reward is too great to ignore.

The fastest way to get on the fast track is just to do the things that scare us.

If the Born Kings idea and Genus Rex itself is going to grow, people need to hear about about. People need to read about it and see it and get curious and ask their friends about it. How is this going to happen? By people who are already on board with the Born Kings idea putting cool information out there that leads back to us.

The Laws of the New Tribal Revolution

1. The revolution won't take place all at once.

It's not going to be any sort of coup d'etat like the

French or Russian revolutions.

2. It will be achieved incrementally, by people working off each other's ideas.

This is the great driving innovation of the Industrial Revolution.

3. It will be led by no one.

Like the Industrial Revolution, it will need no shepherd, no organizer, no spearhead, no pacesetter, no mastermind at the top; it will be too much for anyone to lead.

4. It will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body

— again, like the Industrial Revolution.

Some will doubtless want to claim to be its supporters and protectors; there are always leaders ready to step forward once others have shown the way.

5. It has no targeted end point.

Why should it have an end point?

6. It will proceed according to no plan.

How on earth could there be a plan?

7. It will reward those who further the revolution with the coin of the revolution.

In the Industrial Revolution, those who contributed much in the way of product wealth received much in the way of product wealth; in the New Tribal Revolution, those who contribute much in the way of support will receive much in the way of support.

Daniel Quinn's “My Ishmael”

Included here is promotional material that anyone can use talk up the Born Kings idea, Genus Rex, or any other part of the movement. Also included here are directions on how to make certain cool things you do with regards to Genus Rex leads people back to Genus Rex.


So Let’s get started!

One final thought though... Respect

The Problem with young people today is respect.

The first problem is that they do not respect themselves.

How can they become good people if they do not respect themselves? We need to help them discover self-respect by letting them achieve challenges and build their confidence.

The second problem is lack of respect for each other. They need to be able to earn the respect of their peers, but they don’t know how to.

They think that respect comes from having what they have: new clothes and things like that. Respect does not come from what you have: it comes from what you do. And if they cannot respect each other, they cannot respect themselves.

Of course, if they respect themselves. And respect each other, they will find it very easy to respect their elders.

If we deserve any respect of course!

--Dogon Elder of Western Africa

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves

- in finding themselves.

--Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

We judge groups based on the people who are a part of them. There is no way around it. So how you act and how you look and how you behave will influence how people about us. So with respect to that, we humbly ask that you be awesome. Be impressive.

Why Should I Care?

We are supposed to forget about our discontent and join the great march of civilization. Our parents did, clearly. But some of us, and the number appears to be increasing with each generation, cannot find it within ourselves to join the march of civilization. We resent it. What our parents saw as progress, we see as folly. What our parents saw as contribution, we see as despoiling. What our parents saw as achievement, we see as armageddon with life itself. Not all of us of course, but more all the time.

What are we to do? Where can we stand? Is there a place for us? Or are we simply errors, broken cogs that jam this beautiful system?

"Among the people of your culture, which want to destroy the world?"

"As far as I know, no one specifically wants to destroy the world."

"And yet you do destroy it, each of you. Each of you contributes daily to the destruction of the world. Why don't you stop?"

I shrugged. "Frankly, we don't know how."

"You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live."

Daniel Quinn, In 'Ishmael'

Why do people feel trapped? Why is captivity a common facet of our cultural life: The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, Soylent Green, 1984, A Brave New World, World of Darkness, Blade, V for Vendetta, etc..?

"The world of the Takers is one vast prison, and except for a handful of Leavers scattered across the world, the entire human race is now inside that prison."

Daniel Quinn, In 'Ishmael'

Why do people wonder if they are deceived in our culture? Plato wondered about his mythological cave where people were imprisoned and taught that the cave with its shadow puppets was the whole world. Obviously Plato was trying to say that we were being deceived into accepting  a psychological prison of some kind. Descartes said much the same with his thought experiments about the evil mastermind who may be able to convince us that what we see is real, when in fact it is simply a construct of his making. From these images, the Wachowski brothers crafted the Matrix Trilogy- three movies about imprisonment of body, mind and ideology- all of which seem to heavily imply that human beings live in a box.

The Thirteenth Floor, Dark City, Soylent Green, A Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, V for Vendetta and many other works of fiction in film, literature, and comics suggest that the world we live in is a prison in some way shape or form. It may a literal prison, or it may be a psychological prison. It may be a physical prison with walls, or a prison of surveillance. Even the religions of the world consider this world to a prison of sorts: a grim, sinful, and dangerous school where we will be graded and either pass or fail for all eternity. Why do we feel this way? What is wrong with this culture of ours, because certainly if an individual had this obsession with the idea that he or she was in a prison that they were unable to see or even prove the existence of, we would have diagnosed them as having severe paranoid delusions by now. Thus if this enormous obsession with imprisonment is not normal, then why do we feel this way?

Are You One of Us?

Hi, I’d like to introduce myself. If you don’t know me, you likely know somebody like me.

I’m the young person who seems at least reasonably smart and hard working who can’t seem to fit in and get the hang of life. I’m sometimes congenial and other times stand-offish.

I’ve been accused of being unreasonable, unrealistic, naive, or foolish.

I’ve been accused of having a bad attitude, or not wanting to pay my dues, or not understanding how the world works.

I wander, seemingly without purpose. The benchmarks of my parents good pay, good benefits, job security, don’t impress me. I quit or get fired. I am often depressed.

People like me fall into drug use in seemingly larger numbers each year. People like me struggle with depression and seem to swing between apathy and passionate anger at the oddest times. People like me seem to have their lives permanently stalled or locked in neutral at the on ramp of adulthood.

What is to done about people like me?

I often like the outdoors, the sound of wind over the hill. I frequently like hiking and camping and often take martial arts or outdoor sports.

Psychologists and artists both are noticing that the frustration and directionless in security of adolescence is lasting longer and longer. Robert Bly wrote about it in “Iron John”, as did Michael Kimmel in “Guyland”. Adult women read teen fantasy such as “Twilight”- in which a teen girl slowly enters the world of the undead, forever sixteen. Popular television is rooted in the teenage quest for popularity- the reality television show. Immature adults populate movies in ever greater numbers.

But I do not think that most of us want to be here- trapped in this nowhere space between child and adult- despite what Hollywood might think. I think people like me remain here- trapped- because we see no viable exit.

Sechelt Quest: The Lost Camp, Part Three

So, when we had left off yesterday, we had reached the beach! And had also promised you the video of the beach. So here it is, enjoy:

If the video will not display, it is available on youtube here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDtXDVAEdA8

Tomorrow we will cover the trip back, the sacred lake, and our meeting with Superman. Stay Tuned!

Sechelt Quest: The Lost Camp, Part One

Brave Warriors We Were and Bold and Brash and Soon to Be Bloodied...

The Weekly meeting of Core Club for Genus Rex decided to have its meeting this week as a day hike. This week's posts will chronicle that epic trip.


We set out Sunday morning at 5:30am for the Horseshoe bay ferry terminal, to catch the first ferry across to Langdale and Gibson and from there up the Sunshine coast to Sechelt. Our goal was here, the abandoned bible camp beyond Mount Richardson Park and Tetrahedron Park that we questing warriors felt might indicate a suitable place for our planned camp.

The trip across the water and up to Sechelt went off without a hitch. We got lost trying to find the hiking trail and went up a dead end trail to a watermain access point in our first attempt to find the trail marked on the map.

Our second attempt at finding the trail was successful, and went headed up towards the potential camp site. And up was the appropriate term, because in 6 km of walking we rose 700 m. The elevation change did a number of my (Ryan Cove) knees and reminded me that I do in fact have arthritis. Donald and Jordan powered through like warrior poets. And Michelle?

Well as you can see from the picture, she was so far ahead of us boys in the first 6 km that we couldn't even see her most of the time. She only allowed us to catch up when she accidentally stepped on a bee and got stung.

After the first 6km the terrain flattened out and the travel became easier. We also realized that we could access this road with Donald's truck or even Jordan's if we slowed down and made allowance for the lower wheel base. None of us wanted to turn around at this point though, and so a mental note was made for the next trip.

As we walked we considered the idea of charging two fees for camp attendance, one for those who hiked the monster hike to the camp, and a higher fee for those who arrived by boat without having to hike. We also argued back and forth the idea of a badge for those who did this hike at least once.

Donald spotted deer tracks, and we began to notice piles of old decomposing bear poop near the end of the even trail.

Our final way station before the next elevation change would be an unnamed lake that was therefore christened Jordan Lake by somebody in the group, but certainly not by Jordan himself.

We paused to reflect on how amazing it looked, but this time we didn't stop to stick our heads in and cool down. That would change on the return trip, but we still had another 4km of switch backs and elevation drops (another 800m) to get through before we reached the point on the map where the old camp was supposed to be....

Continued Tomorrow in Part Two!

Bad Ass of the Week (Mild Language Warning on these links)

I am a regular reader of Bad Ass of the Week dot com. The site is over the top and hilarious, but also inspirational. Although the author includes a number of fictional characters, the number of real people included is awesome and enough to humble the most pompous of windbags.

By Way of Example I have included some of my favorite articles here:

• Mas Oyama: The Martial Artrist known as Godhand, who used to bullfight with his bare hands... and win!
• Leo Major: The Canadian Soldier who single handedly liberated a whole city in World War 2 and earn a commendation in The Korean War, all with only one eye! ("God gave me two of them sir, I'm still good to fight!")
• Tom Wanyandie: The 78 year old man who fought off an angry mother bear.

There are other great entries in the list, and I may highlight a few later, but this is a start. Here to remind of the amazing things that people are capable of when they decide that they will.

Added Late (because I couldn't find it when I first posted this):

•  Daniel M'Mburugu: The 73 year old man who ripped out the TONGUE of the leopard that was trying to turn Daniel into lunchmeat.